Oceans of Love!

There comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn’t jump puddles for you.

–Anonymous–

In my discourse with a girl who wrote to me a few months ago, I concluded that worshipping the ground a man walks on is not a difficult feat if you’re a woman. You don’t need 19th Century slave trade skills to implement this one. Nor do you need to bribe the victim with secrets from the darkest corner of their closet where the skeletons fear to tread. It all has to do with some tweaking of a girl’s romance wiring. It wasn’t the first email I had received from a member of the opposite sex who asked to pray, talk or meet up and discuss about a rut she was in because she was at the beck and call of a guy she liked. Of course, I do none of the above but usually direct all such emails to my wife lest I get into an emotional entanglement. But when the help sought by the girls is not deeply rooted and she doesn’t have to open up her heart to me, I simply reply using a 1500 word piece.

This particular girl was adamant to talk to my wife let alone meet her. I would normally get skeptical about a girl like that and this was no different. She claimed she had done several terrible things and it took tons of effort to confess it to a stranger whose blog she reads. She wanted the blogger’s advice and nothing more. I decided to make an exception and give a listening ear to the girl. She talked of how she loved her former boyfriend but was devastated when he caught him cheating on her. She wept bitterly and cursed the day she fell in love with him. After a few weeks she returned to him. He had missed her and called to say he loved her. He promised her sweet nothings and vowed he wasn’t cheating on her with that classmate girl she suspected. They made amends and in a few hours they were back in the dating game. In no time, the dating game got a substitute player. He was cheating on her again. She had all the proof but wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from him. Her reaction made me remember a meme I once encountered on Google Plus. It read, “Women are like the police; they have all the evidence but still insist on a confession.”

The meme is debatable but the implications are not. Women have been known to be the boomerang of a destructive relationship. Why do they always come back? I took the incident to my wife, who let me know that she was in the process of talking things through with two girls in a similar debacle. They were all in relationships where they were treated like trash (their confession, not mine) and they still found themselves returning to the men. I hardly found a similar case among men so I got intrigued by the women. Much later, more ladies with similar cases wrote and I couldn’t help but notice an overwhelming similarity in each despondent story.

In all cases, the women had slept with the men

Some women who had NOT experimented with pre-marital sex found themselves debating certain relationships with questionable men but from their responses, one could easily tell that they possessed significant willpower over the decision. They easily turned down jerks, cheaters and players.

Realize this, beloved, that you are not just a meat-bag with a brain for an engine to propel your daily activities; you are more. Your life has purpose. It has meaning! You are a spirit, you have a soul and you live in a body. You can travel the entire cosmic universe and search for meaning beyond the galaxies but you will be surprised to find that the meaning is in who you are. You are a spirit from a God who desires its restitution from a broken, sinful world. Sex outside marriage beloved, is a sin and sin is not just breaking God’s rules; it’s breaking God’s heart. Sin is a power and it’s the reason some of these women kept returning back to hurt. There is a power over them.

Your sexual body

Your body is your flesh and bones. The oxytocin hormone in women’s bodies produced during lovemaking creates a bonding with the men they sleep with. Your physical body was made by your Creator to create a lasting desire to connect and reconnect with the man you give yourself sexually to. This hormone is good for marriages and terrible for sex outside a marital commitment especially with more than one person. It is a contributory factor as to why the women feel bound to the men on the body level.

There’s more

Your Soul

Your soul is your mind/memories and your emotions. Every sexual encounter has memorable emotional effects. Rape causes trauma. Pedophilia creates fear and consensual lovemaking creates longing. On these grounds, women feel bound to men on a soul level. Whilst Hollywood tells you that you can meet a stranger, hit the sack for the night, shower in the morning and feel precious, experience has taught many otherwise. Women may believe the lie of the movies because it paints the picture of the man who is everything they need. He is gentle yet buff, emotional yet tough. He is the Prince Charming of our souls and the hero of the day. No matter how bad he messes up, they can put up with it as long as he is the one that they crave. A famous pastor I know calls it emotional porn. When these women see false hints of that in a real man they desire, they actually believe he could fill that gap. If he isn’t everything, then they are his motivation to become it. So when Prince Charming proves to be not-so-charming and breaks your heart, your world bursts at the seams. You placed your hope and it not only broke but it fell and hurt you in the process. There is inner turmoil when you are abandoned by someone you connected sexually with. Even worse when they leave you for another.

Well, how come when the women stop sleeping with the men, the bonding still holds fast? No more oxytocin should take care of the body bonding right? And terrible, hurtful memories should destroy the emotional longing she has for him right? It doesn’t work that way. Your Creator beloved, did not make your body and soul to avoid problems. He made it for a world without problems-a perfect world. But we ruined it (Ol’ Adam n E.V.E). The human being was crafted in a perfect world to enjoy benefits. God created you to act on his command not to react to sin. When we go against his command for our sexuality (and any other command), we create sin and we are faced with the consequences of it. And some of that consequence, especially for women, is being trapped in a hurtful relationship and losing will power to disengage.

Timothy Keller once said, “What the heart trusts, the mind justifies, the emotions desire, and the will carries out.” Your heart trusts that the pleasure and connection of a sexual encounter outside marriage will be worth it. Therefore, your mind justifies it with excuses such as “he loves me”, “We love each other”,”I’m not hurting anybody”,”It’s my life”. Because your mind justifies it, you pursue a temporary pleasure that makes you feel temporarily good so your emotions desire it. As a result, your will carries out the act. The end result is emptiness, isn’t it? If your premise of trust is based on something delicate, fragile or mortal, your whole life will collapse.

Your Spirit

There lingers an emptiness in every human being that sex, money, beauty, pleasure, morality, fantasy, entertainment, justice, revenge, education, human approval and virtually all perceived existence will never fill and will never satiate. The more we try, the emptier we become. We were built for more-spiritual intimacy with real satisfaction that only comes from the Creator of all that exists. That’s where our premise of trust should be.

Some of you will stop reading here because the last thing you wanted to hear was that you need God. Heck, you possibly were in church recently and you felt that the people even judged you. Listen, beloved, you can walk down that road but we all know where it leads. This is not about other people. This is your page in life. This is you. You walk down that road and it starts with guilt for returning to Mr. Good-looking knowing well that the relationship is abusive (physically or emotionally) or hurtful. Then it follows with anger at yourself for going back (yet you don’t know why) and anger at those around you who don’t understand why either, followed by a hunger to drown the pain and feel appreciated and loved so you return to him again. You may scream, “Ernest, you think you know me? You think you have me all figured out?” The answer is I don’t. But I know someone who does. I am no longer asking you to measure up to a list of dos and don’ts in the Bible to fix your “spirit”. Many have tried that. It’s not how it works. I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. I’m here to introduce to you someone who will give you life that you don’t have.

Beloved, an encounter with Christ Jesus is not a mere friend-request or a networking introduction. Every reaction to Christ is extreme! You can either hate him exceedingly or worship him immensely. You think you’ve tried it? If it elicited none of the two extremes, chances are it wasn’t Christ. When Christ says he is the only way to God and the only healer of your pain, he is either right or he is not. He is either one or the other. He can’t be middle ground or moderate. He didn’t say “I am a way.” He said “I am the way.” (John 14:6) Once you understand who He is and claims to be, your move will either make you loathe him for saying something so narcissistic or love him so extravagantly for the sacrifice of your sin upon that cross.

You have already heard the rules since you were a kid: You know that you should have sex only during marriage. You know that you shouldn’t be living with him. You know deep down that he doesn’t love you yet you yearn for him to just say it even when you know he doesn’t mean it. You know all these and you’ve even heard if from your best friend and your momma. But knowing them won’t save you. Knowing them is a tool. And every tool needs a wielder. Christ is that wielder. Know the wielder not just the tool.

If you’re a woman and have been caught in the rut of an abusive relationship that you keep running to over and over again and you don’t understand why, you owe it to yourself to pursue a final solution. If you’ve tried over and over but still find yourself giving in to sex despite the fact that he’s cheating on you, have the guts to give yourself a fighting chance for the worth of your life through God. Because there comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn’t jump puddles for you. And that time is now. All God requires is that you jump a simple puddle of faith because he crossed oceans of stars to save your soul.

The Bible says that a sexual encounter binds. 1 Corinthians 6:16 “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

Prostitute here means a context and not only the person. The Bible isn’t only talking about sex with a harlot but sex outside God’s will. The context here is consensual sex. Any consensual sex will bind you to that person whether they be a prostitute, your boyfriend of clandestine relationship. Any lovemaking outside marriage is often a pursuit to derive a satisfaction that can never be filled with anyone but your Creator. Why do the girls keep running back? You hunger love. Come to the King of love. Why do they return to abusive relationships? They seek to have worth. Christ gave you infinite worth when he forgave you of your sins. You stand un-accused and loved! He took the punishment for them because you were not worthy to come to God even with all your good and moral deeds piled up to high heaven. He clothes you with righteousness so that God sees you pure. When the world calls you a slut, he sees a virgin. When the world calls you sinful, he calls you forgiven. When the world calls you hopeless, he becomes your hope. He hides you under his wing, protects you from the hurt of relationships gone sour and promises to give you a relationship of a marriage that works (not just here on earth) but ultimately and eternally with the perfect gentlemen…Jesus Christ-the man who crosses oceans of love for you! His love for you can never be stopped by a better looking woman or something so terrible that you may have done. So stop crossing oceans for mere men that won’t jump puddles for you. Pray that they may come to know Christ but don’t place your hope in them because God is making you anew.

2 Corinthians 5:17 states, “Therefore is anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”

Comments

Ernest Wamboye is a disciple of Jesus Christ, a husband, a father, an author and a speaker. He has been married to the lovely Waturi since September 2012. They have a passion for youth ministry. Together they minister to young adults on the gospel and pre-marital relationships. Ernest has authored two books, The Human Temple, a novel, and Lust and the City- a guide on sexual purity.

Ernest, you have but merely scratched the surface to this issue. Maybe if you are open-minded enough to go beyond religion and tackle it from a spiritual standpoint you might be able to reach the core. But I understand that this is the path you have chosen and I do hope one day you open you eyes to what is glaring you in the face. That said, pay attention to whom you share your intimate energy with. Intimacy at this level intertwines your aural energy with the aural energy of the other person. These powerful connections, regardless of how insignificant you think they are, leave spiritual debris, particularly within people who do not practice any type of cleansing, physical, emotional or otherwise. The more you interact intimately with someone, the deeper the connection and the more of their aura is intertwined with yours.

Imagine the confused aura of someone who sleeps with multiple people and carries around these multiple energies? What they may not realize is that others can feel that energy which can repel positive energy and attract negative energy into your life.

Actually no, this is not Cianna and neither am I a new ager as you put it. Evidently you are not ready to wake up and be unplugged from your flawed views. You seem to do a lot of scripture quoting and holding fast to it and not much of your own thinking. I can name at least 1000 people who would have given this exact response because it is what they are taught to say in such situations. Like I said earlier, I pray that one day your eyes may open and your mind go beyond just religion.

Apologies, beloved. I should have inquired whether this was Cianna. She's a friend from Detroit with whom I've discussed this before. I apologise for assuming you were a new ager. My analysis was wrong. I respect your views and surely don't expect everyone who reads Pen Strokes to agree with what I blog about. I do hope one day in the afterlife we can laugh about this 🙂

No harm done. I only wish to broaden your views because I see in you what I don't see in most people, potential to change the world. A voice of reason and I'd hate for that voice to be muffled or restricted by religion. The only reason I chose to write to you is because I wish someone had done the same for me earlier in life. I am in no way an atheist. I believe in a supreme being (God) and I believe that we have in all of us, all that we need to connect to him. All we need to do is look within as opposed to without. Spirituality as opposed to religion. If you examine all religions closely and get to the core, you will without a doubt see one thing, there is but only one God.

Thank you for forgiving me. I have been in the past quick to speak…and in many cases prone to pass wrong judgement on people. Looks like old habits die hard 🙂 Thank you for that. I am humbled by it. We hold the same view on one God. I'm all the way down here in the equator. Any books you can recommend about what you've mentioned (if any)

I'm humbled by your humility, I respect you for that. I am in no way proposing one way or another, I only seek to awaken in you what is already there. No one has the right to impose his/her beliefs on another person. Each and everyone of us has their own paths that they must follow, some of us are only here to be a light unto others paths. The decision is up to you. I can recommend subtle eye opening books like 1. The four agreements by Miguel Ruiz, to more powerful and world shuttering books like 2. The Magnus of Java, but ultimately it's your journey and you must find your own path. Search within, open your mind's eye. I will look for you in the afterlife Ernest Wamboye, just make sure you get there 🙂

I took the liberty to research more about you and I noticed that like me, you are a storyteller. Impressed. I was not wrong about my initial assessment of you. The title of your book is very catching, I cant wait to read it.

If only we could reach more young girls and boys with this message, I know its never too late in God's infinite grace but the enemy has done a great job of "twisting" perceptions/reality. I know God will do a greater work in reconciling His children back to Him. There is an urgency to reach the innocent ones about this Truth…the world grows more wicked and deceived with each passing season. #Revival

Brother Ernest, Huh; "There comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn't jump puddles for you" The universality of this concept got me liberated. You'll never fail to amaze me by your wisdom. I thank God for you!